


How Does Your Garden Grow

by sophinisba



Category: Rapunzel (Fairy Tale)
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, F/M, Fairy Tales, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-07 21:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rapunzel's mother never agreed to this bargain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Does Your Garden Grow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loathlylady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loathlylady/gifts).



Four women in the room - the new mother and her newborn daughter, the midwife and the sorceress - and all of them were screaming. But the mother soon tired, for the birth hadn't been easy, and the midwife quieted the baby so the intruder could speak her piece. Her own home had been violated six months ago, she said. A peasant climbed over the wall to steal from her garden. _And as you know, I depend on those herbs for my livelihood. I told him my price. He agreed._ The midwife lowered her head. Mother and daughter went back to screaming.

~*~

They wrested the baby from her weak arms and then tried to feed her other herbs to calm her down, but she wouldn't swallow anything. She kept screaming, threw the midwife out as a traitor to mothers everywhere, _nothing more than another witch_.

"There was nothing else I could do," her husband said when he returned. "You needed rapunzel, dearest. You said you'd die if I couldn't bring -"

"You _fool_," she said. "No one dies from a lack of lettuce. You had no right to agree to this. Go. Bring back my child or don't come back to my house."

~*~

When she was strong enough to go outside she called over the high wall to the sorceress, her neighbor, but there was no answer. In another week she was strong enough to climb the clinging vine herself, but the garden and the house on the other side were brittle, barren and abandoned.

She sat among the dry roots of valerian and rapunzel and wondered if her husband had been killed or captured on this very spot. Or perhaps he'd given up, gone to find another wife, a gentle, forgiving young thing who would bear him a child within the year.

~*~

With no trace of the child to follow, she saw no reason to leave. She was done crying, but she directed the rainwater and sunlight and slowly brought the garden back to grudging life. One day the midwife came and asked quietly if she had any mugwort or cohosh to sell. Other women, strangers, appeared in the following months. It was a bitter, prickly living - more like nettles gone to seed than green flowering rapunzel - but she'd stopped hoping for something better. As far as the village knew, there had always been one witch in the house behind the wall.

~*~

Years passed and one dreary day an old man came to call. Once she'd recognized him through the wrinkles and scars she said, "Well, have you brought back our daughter?"

No, he said, but after sixteen years of searching he'd found help at last, for the King's youngest son was of an age for going out and having adventures, fighting villains, and rescuing young maidens. He would find the girl, wherever she was, and bring her out. "As I will bring you out," he said. "Do not hide behind this wall, but be my beloved wife in the wide world."

~*~

"You fool," she said, not shouting now but sad, for she knew this prince was no hero to be trusted. In every village he had some adventure and then moved on, leaving behind the sort of problems that sent midwives to purchase herbs from the witch behind the high wall. "Let us go then, and see if we can find her before he does."

Her husband did not understand, but he was happy not to be sent away. That night in the tavern they uncovered each other's aging bodies, and they said, _My love, it has been far too long_.

~*~

They traveled the towns together and asked wherever they could, but months passed and they heard no news of the Prince until after he too had vanished. They went into the woods where last he'd been seen and found only a solitary tower, sheer and silent and empty. They had come too late.

But as they were walking back toward the town, heads hung low and tears trapped in their eyes, they came upon a young girl with rough cropped, dirty tangled yellow hair. Her face was smudged and scared. Her belly was big.

"What is your name, child?"

"Rapunzel."

~*~

"I am sick," said the daughter. "I was wrong to betray my godmother, and now I am being punished. Soon I will die."

"No," said the mother, "you are not wrong and you are not dying. You were wronged but now you are blessed, for soon you will bear a child, and we will help you."

She kept her voice even and her words simple so as not to frighten the girl, even though she was so happy she wanted to weep. Still, Rapunzel did not understand. "But I _am_ being punished," she said. "I do not want a child."

~*~

They talked to her, held her, explained as they could. They could live together, take care of each other, and they would be poor but happy. They paid the local midwife for a room and her help, and Rapunzel stayed with them because she had nowhere else to go. She screamed as she delivered first a girl and then a boy, and she never forgave her mother for anything - not for giving her up, not for telling her she was blessed, not for condemning her to go on living. When she had rested she ran away into the wilderness alone.

~*~

The old couple did not follow after Rapunzel but found a little cottage and for three years they lived happily as they could, taking care of their grandchildren and their garden. Then one day came in a carriage a beautiful young man and woman, and their servants carried swords.

"Rapunzel is my wife now," said the Prince, "and these children are my heirs. They will come with us to the castle."

Rapunzel lowered her head.

This time her parents both fought, but the King's guards were stronger. For the rest of their years they found happiness only in each other.


End file.
